Ending of the Dark Tower Series

There's a lot of wind going around that Stephen King kind of cheated his fans with that ending of his. I'm kind of split down the middle on it. At one point, I can see how it HAD to end that way. There's a bit of genius worked into that ending, like that.
On the other hand, I do feel cheated. And I think it has to do with the horn. Roland's supposed to blow it after his arrival at the Dark Tower but he doesn't have it, and I believe that's where we get cheated. A mistake several books back that Stephen King just couldn't correct successfully. So the only way he could write himself out of the mistake was to give us a back door ending.

What do yo guys think? Should he have written in that Roland found the horn down the road somewhere after loosing it at the battle in Mejis (sp?), even though it'd be an obvious patch and go? It would have forced him to write a true ending at least. Comments?

I was definately let down. Not by the ending itself really, but by the last 3 books in general. I found myself reading simply to get them done, not reading to enjoy them. If I now recommend the Dark Tower to anyone, I only recommend the first 4 books. Pretty much anyone can make up their own ending after book 4 and be just as satisfied.

Compare book 1 to book 7, and they hardly seem like they were written by the same man, or even part of the same story.

I also found King's afterword to be offensive towards the reader, lumping us all into a small group of stalkers that he doesn't want visiting him. As if we all needed a warning to not come visit him.

King wanted to write an opus, and he had every single opportunity to do that, but for whatever reason, he screwed it up. He has no one to blame but himself. It seems right now that he has cheated us readers out of our $50 for each of the last 3 books, but as the years go by I think King will see that the one person who he cheated the most was himself. He really wanted to write this story to the magnitude of LOTR, and could have, and didn't, and can't change that now.

This was the only ending possible,Nothing would stand in Rolands way, his Ka-tet were second to his quest it didn't matter who died or survived as long as Roland reached the tower.The quest was a test for Roland something that will keep occurring until Roland discovers the true meaning of it.

I know that's what King said "this is the only possible ending" but Im not really buying it.

What was it that occurred after he entered the desert that got him stuck in the wheel? King just picked the point at which the story begins. There isnt anything intrinsic to plotline that suggests this would be the point at which the tower put him back. Everything seemed arbitrary.

What is Roland supposed to realize or discover? Nothing else was ever hinted at. Entering the tower was his goal.
I would have "gotten-it" had he been put back into the same situation on a slightly different plane of existance ie he is some sort of "eternal champion" that travels through the various planes to defeat the Crimson King.. but this wasnt hinted at either.

SPOILER
When Roland returns to the starting point,there is one small difference this time round he has the horn.
Any way even if King had finished it by saying it was all an illusion I would properly said it was a good ending, simply because I was looking for closure to The Dark Tower I started the series over 20 years ago.

I thought the main difference this time around is not that he has the horn, but that he remembers Cuthbert better because of it, and remembers him kindly instead of with pain. I think this will allow him to love his ka-tet straight away when he meets them and he won't be the cold emotionless man he was in the previous "wheels". Didn't the man in black tell him something like this at the end of book one? That he cannot conquer the Tower an empty man or he'd become a monster himself? I believe this time around he'll do it, not because he can blow this horn but because he can love.

That being said, I do agree with other things said here, that King didn't know how to finish. All the almighty problems he'd set himself in the earlier books, "talking about the Beast is talking about the destruction of your own soul." - where is this Beast? There are so many loose threads that never get solved. All these problems seem to end in easy solutions, as if he didn't know how to solve them, and this started way back in book 4. Flagg takes the Tick-Tock man along, which I though was a brilliant scene, but in book 4 he plays some ridiculous machine and then gets killed by one bullet after two seconds. Everything after book 3 just doesn't live up to the built-up before. Almost nothing of the conversation the gunslinger has with Marten at the end of book one can be found back later.

I've gotta say i was a bit disapointed by the ending.the only reason 4 them finding the tower was 2 stop the crimson king from ending everything by making the tower collapse.I really thought that once roland found the tower and reached the top that he would have to sacrifice him self 2 fix the beams that had already been destroyed and therefore make things in his world the way it was before it moved on which was the reason he started the quest for the dark tower in the first place.let me know what u think?.